Monthly Archives: May, 2007

In the spirit of the month that reminds us why Hallmark stores still exist, I bring you Valentinesy questions with more reasonable answers than usual.

In an interview with F Newsmagazine, Cordero said he suspected that his piece might cause a stir, preparing for the media frenzy by writing and rewriting his artist statement and asking for help from mentors. Cordero also alerted Barack Obama and his family of the sculpture and explained his motives for creating the piece, though he admits that “it’s difficult to account for all of an artist’s motives.” Cordero was not surprised at the Obama camp’s official response that Obama doesn’t support art that is religiously offensive.

hough you may not know the ad agency Ogilvy and Mather, Toronto, you may have seen the results of their creative output, the excellent Dove Evolution campaign. Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch multinational corporation which owns Dove, created a revolution in the skin-care industry with that campaign, boldly exposing the standard industry practice of using professional make-over followed by sophisticated image-retouching in Photoshop, transforming a normal girl into one fit to be on their billboards!

hough you may not know the ad agency Ogilvy and Mather, Toronto, you may have seen the results of their creative output, the excellent Dove Evolution campaign. Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch multinational corporation which owns Dove, created a revolution in the skin-care industry with that campaign, boldly exposing the standard industry practice of using professional make-over followed by sophisticated image-retouching in Photoshop, transforming a normal girl into one fit to be on their billboards!

There is a small, but wonderful, sub-genre of films which replace the mad scientist with a mad artist. I have carefully selected this month’s picks. Now, grab that beer and pastry of choice, and enjoy

The MFA show will open on Friday, May 4. You can get your sweat on from 7 - 10 p.m., and if you don’t make it in time to elbow your way around G2, don’t worry; the exhibition will be on view through May 18. Graduating students from the MFA in Writing program will present their theses on May 8, in the Ballroom, from 7 - 11 p.m.

The two hours before the MFA show's official opening is, in my opinion, the perfect opportunity to fully take in the exhibition; between sips of free wine, and with the hint of excitement that precludes any event of its kind, it should be offered to all those who can stomach two massive floors full of art. There was an undeniable buzz in the air, along with an unidentified group of people strumming guitars and singing haphazardly on the first floor of the show.

  The Museum of Contemporary Art celebrates its fortieth anniversary this year with a trilogy of exhibitions highlighting work from its permanent collection. MCA Exposed:...

On Friday, March 13th I saw Iggy and The Stooges perform at the Fox Theater in Detroit. I road-tripped up there with my friend Jeremy, who, of all the people I know, is the closest to being a superhero. By day he wears long sleeve button downs and reads Clifford the Big Red Dog to four year-olds; by night he goes shirtless, exposing all seventeen of his tattoos, and screams violent lyrics into a microphone while throngs of mohawked psychopaths slam-dance to the sounds of his most recent music project, a raucous ensemble called Night of The Hunter. He's a Gulf War veteran who proudly votes straight-ticket Democrat.

Ryan Griffin, a 22-year-old artist and recent graduate from SAIC, was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor on May 2nd. While chalking murals on the Dearborn bridge, the young artist was cuffed and taken to the District 1 police station where he was charged with 'criminal damage to property' and forced to spend the night in jail.

F sent its crack team of art reporters into the field to gather information on the hottest small gallery action in Chicago

With all the dust settled on the slew of Spring graduate shows, it only seems right to take stock of Gallery 2 as a building and as a space meant to connect student artists with the outside world. Nestled firmly in the West Loop Gallery District, G2, as it is known to most, has undergone serious transformations in the past several years, including a move, a consolidation, and an uncertain future. Sold in August 2005 to Cormony Development, a Maryland–based firm, the building was a serious investment for SAIC, and its sale could mean major changes for the atmosphere surrounding our largest exhibition space.

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s annual Undergraduate Exhibition—or the BFA Show, as it is often termed—is a maze-like, often overwhelming conglomeration of highlights carefully self-selected from each student’s developing oeuvre. Even if you missed the opening night’s swamp-like heat and Obama-obsessed media blitz, the exhibition, on view for a two week run at SAIC’s Gallery 2 space, contained hundreds of works, and a number of similarities emerged from amid the two floors packed with art work. Corresponding with the art world’s perpetual interest in identity politics throughout the past several decades—which has been addressed with either nods of agreement or eye rolls of derision—a notable quantity of selections dealt with the transfer of personal issues to the public sphere.

Czech art historian and visiting professor at the School of the Art Institute Chicago, Otto Urban, studied art history and aesthetics at Charles University in Prague, and, in 2000, earned his PhD in the same field. He is currently teaching at SAIC, focusing on Central European Symbolism, specifically the question of Decadence. He has curated a number of exhibitions, and his book In Morbid Colors: Art and the Idea of Decadence in the Bohemian Lands, 1880-1914 recently won the Book of the Year 2006 award in the Czech Republic.

Czech art historian and visiting professor at the School of the Art Institute Chicago, Otto Urban, studied art history and aesthetics at Charles University in Prague, and, in 2000, earned his PhD in the same field. He is currently teaching at SAIC, focusing on Central European Symbolism, specifically the question of Decadence. He has curated a number of exhibitions, and his book In Morbid Colors: Art and the Idea of Decadence in the Bohemian Lands, 1880-1914 recently won the Book of the Year 2006 award in the Czech Republic.